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Microsoft's New Mantra: 'It Just Works'

So doesn't Windows work right now? Not quite so (until next year sometime) according to thisFortune Magazine article. Ironically, Apple have always assumed "It should just work", and when it comes to their technology (software or hardware) at the very least they assume "it does work".

I think this marketing message for the next release of Windows is broken, especially for someone whose been using what appears to be a not "just working" operating systems since Windows 2.0 :-(

Here is an interesting from Enterprise Systems Journal by Jim McGee titled: The Invisibility of Knowledge Work.

Here is a an interesting and insightful quote from the article that resonates with me:

Invisibility is an accidental and little-recognized characteristic of digital knowledge work. Seeing the problem is the first step to a solution. While better technology tools will play an important role, the next steps are changes in attitude and behavior at the individual and work group level. For example, organizing your own digital files into project-related directories can help, but not if you continue to name files "FinalPresentationNN.doc" where NN is some number between 1 and 15 representing a crude effort at version control. Embed more information in the file name where you know it will be visible even as you e-mail it around the organization. Use more informative subject lines on your email. Those file names and subject lines should provide the best clues possible as to what will be found inside.

The quote above strikes a chord with me because I have spent a majority of my professional career working on technology that is aimed at Information and Knowledge workers. It also has uncanny timing as it sheds light on a major aspect of the next major release of Virtuoso that aims to continue the process of unveiling the intrinsic value of Unified Storage (SQL, XML, and Multimedia content) for Knowledge workers.

We are already experiencing a rapid build up of XML content and binary data with XML based metadata annotations as a result of the network effects of the Blogosphere and Wikisphere. This content explosion ultimately provides context for understanding the value of URIs association with collections of physically (e.g hierarchical directory structure) or logically (Tagging or Dynamic Filtering) partitioned content.

The Skype Economy Do you have a product or a platform? More and more companies are recognizing that the real route to success is not to offer a product, but a platform on which other products are offered. With that in mind, we're seeing more and more products that are building up strong and active development communities that make their initial offering more useful and valuable to buyers. Recently there have been articles about the ecosystem of companies who provide enhancements for the iPod, and now some are recognizing that Skype is moving into similar territory. Of course, the risk for companies or developers who build on these newer platforms is that they're totally beholden to the provider -- and that puts them at risk. They have no control over the environment they're working in. Skype could decide to build the same functionality themselves. Or, other products could become more popular than Skype. Sometimes it works... but many companies don't realize the danger of putting all their eggs in one basket. If they pick the right platform, it can be lucrative for a while, but it's not always easy to know who's going to win. [via Techdirt]

If the underlying platform is standards based then there is some protection (you can switch platform wholesale or a segment within the platform), otherwise, it's a count down to the inevitable. Any platform provider that isn't standards based (where standards exist in their realm), will always attack ersthwhile partners as part of its growth needs. This is a consistent and time-proven industry pattern.

Here is another article titled "IBM Flexes XML Muscle" that covers the same general theme: IBM's appreciation of Unified Storage.

As indicated in an earlier post: IBM is clearly validating what we have done with Virtuoso (as was the case initially with their Virtual / Federated DBMS initiative ala DB2 Integrator). Here is an excerpt from today's eWeek article supporting this position:

To achieve maximum XML performance, bolstered indexing attributes in the technology will enable advanced search functions and a higher degree of filtering. IBM is also adding support for XPath and XQuery data models. This will allow users to create views that involve SQL and XQuery by sending the protocol through DB2's query optimizer for a unified query plan.

This is part 4 of a series on the growth of the Blogosphere, its impact on individuals, corporations, media, politics, and technology, Part 1 covered the overall growth of the blogosphere, part 2 covered the volume of postings, and part 3 covered the growing influence that bloggers are having, and compared them to the online presences of traditional mainstream media.

Today I'll discuss a small but influential segment of bloggers - Corporate Bloggers. These are people who blog in an official or semi-official capacity at a company, or are so affiliated with the company where they work that even though they are not officially spokespeople for the company, they are clearly affiliated. For example, the folks in SAP's developers program get blogs if they want them, and are available to anyone who joins the (free) SAP developers network. This group also includes folks at Sun Microsystems and at Microsoft, where employees are actively encouraged to blog.

The chart above (click on it to see a larger version) shows some of the organizations that are at the forefront of the corporate blogging wave. In addition to the big corporate names and the bloggers at companies involved in the blogging space, there are a large number of individual consultants, small business owners, and individual CxO bloggers - about 3,000 that we have identified as of October 2004 - which fill the "other" category. These are folks who are blogging about what is going on at their businesses, but either because of the small number of people at the business, or the small number of bloggers at the individual business, we aggregated them into a single category.

Even though some of the largest technology companies are represented in this graph, to me this shows that we are still at the relative start of accepted use of blogging as a part of corporate policy - and that there is still a tremendous opportunity for forward-thinking companies and management to have a significant positive impact on their public perception by encouraging an enlightened blogging policy, encouraging openness both within and outside of the organization.